The Past Is Another Country

Rhodesia, UDI to Zimbabwe

Plot

Back Martin Meredith has written the political obituary of UDI. The Past is Another Country is a meticulous and authoritative account of 15 years of blunderingly tortuous efforts to bring Rhodesia to legal independence. It is a genuinely tragic story chronicled with the critical detachment of a historian and the readability of a journalist. Meredith shows the skilful manoeuvring by which Ian Smith retained the support of the white population whilst keeping the country economically afloat and holding at bay a succession of politicians and possible mediators from Harold Wilson to Henry Kissinger, from 'Tiny' Rowland to Andrew Young. But it was Smith's intransigence in negotiation that galvanized the black population, despite the internal divisions among its leaders, into warfare. Central to this book is the account of how the guerilla movement developed after years of failure and incompetence into the force which turned Rhodesia into Zimbabwe.